Moritz Grossmann Glashütte History of the Manufactory

Karl Moritz Großmann was the son of a letter sorter, attended elementary school, and later transferred to a private school. After completing this education, he received a two-year scholarship to attend the Royal Saxon Polytechnic School in Dresden.

At age 16, he began a five-year apprenticeship from 1842 to 1847 with the Dresden watchmaker Friedrich Kumme. Even as an apprentice, he gave lectures on watchmaking. In 1847, he set out on his journeyman years as a watchmaker. In Altona near Hamburg, he took a position first with Jansen, and later with the chronometer maker Krille.

In 1848, he volunteered for the German Army and was assigned to a corps led by the Bavarian Major von der Tann, later a general. After the end of the Schleswig-Holstein uprising (Treaty of Malmö), he wanted to emigrate to America, but first returned to his parents in Glashütte. There, he met Ferdinand Adolph Lange, who persuaded him to take a job with him. After seven months in Lange's service, the Dresden May Uprising broke out in 1849, and Großmann was drafted back into the army. In the spring of 1850, he accepted a position with the court watchmaker Biergans in Munich. In October 1850, he moved on to La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland, where he worked as a visiteur (inspector). After only one month, Großmann had to give up this position and return home, as there was renewed mobilization in Saxony. His military service in the reserves finally ended in 1852, allowing him to work in Glashütte again.

In the autumn of 1853, he traveled to London, where he stayed for one year. His return journey took him via Copenhagen and Gothenburg to Stockholm, where he stayed for approximately four weeks. After his return at the end of 1854, he married in Glashütte on January 7, 1855, and founded his watch factory, which he managed until his death. Following his death, the factory was liquidated.

Großmann lived and worked in Glashütte at Hauptstraße 44. Several watchmakers who later became well-known, such as Ludwig Strasser or Richard Gläser, were employed by Großmann.^[3]

In addition to pocket watches, Großmann's workshop produced seconds-pendulum clocks, watchman's control clocks, measuring instruments, watchmaker's lathes, tools, and escapement models with various escapements (including minute tourbillons with chronometer escapements and balance-spring levers). Großmann's workshop gained special significance in Glashütte because crucial designs were engineered there, even if their production was often taken over by other Glashütte workshops rather than by Großmann himself. Examples of this include the development of the Glashütte precision caliper or the Glashütte seconds-pendulum clock, a precision pendulum clock that often served as a reference clock for watchmakers to adjust other timepieces.

In their basic structure, Großmann's pocket watches differ only insignificantly from the watches of other companies in Glashütte. In contrast to them, Großmann frequently used an escape wheel with 16 teeth instead of 15. It is also notable that the minute wheel shaft is just as thin as the shafts of the other gears and not significantly thicker, as is the case with other Glashütte products. Most of his watches are stamped on the movement plate under the dial. Watches signed on the three-quarter plate are rare.

It is estimated that Großmann produced about 8,000 pocket watches. Many movements still in existence after Karl-Moritz Großmann's death were completed by other watchmakers in Glashütte under their own names, for instance by Carl Jentsch. Großmann's tools for the manufacture of the Glashütte precision caliper were acquired and further utilized by the firm Robert Mühle. The residential and business premises at Hauptstraße 44 in Glashütte were sold by Großmann's widow to the company of Georg Reichel.^[3]

Moritz Grossmann was also very socially active, founding the Volunteer Gymnastics Fire Brigade, the Glashütte Military Association, and advocating for a railway connection to the Müglitz Valley. After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1871. This marriage produced three children.

In 1876, he became a member of the Royal Saxon Landtag (parliament).

Großmann, who also gained high recognition as a specialist author in addition to his practical work, recognized the urgent need to establish an educational institution for training young watchmakers.

At the meeting of German watchmakers, which took place in Harzburg from September 5 to 7, 1876, at the invitation of the Berlin Watchmakers' Association, the question was formulated at his suggestion as item four on the agenda: "Would the founding of a German watchmaking school or advanced training institute in Glashütte be feasible?" The founding was decided at the Association Day of German Watchmakers from September 9 to 11, 1877. Subsequently, with state support, Großmann undertook trips to Swiss and French schools. Under Großmann's leadership, a local committee for the establishment and preparation of the school was formed in Glashütte on October 12, 1877.

On May 1, 1878, Karl Moritz Großmann opened the German School of Watchmaking Glashütte (DUS) on behalf of the Central Association of German Watchmakers.

Karl Moritz Großmann passed away on January 23, 1885, in Leipzig, following a lecture on the introduction of Universal Time.

In 1866, he published his first work, The Detached Lever Escapement for Watches. A Practical and Theoretical Treatise, which was awarded a prize in London by the British Horological Institute and made his name known in the professional world.

In 1869, he submitted a study titled On the Construction of a Simple, but Mechanically Perfect Watch to the Chamber of Commerce in Geneva as a contribution to a competition. In it, he describes the Glashütte watch as it was manufactured by Lange due to his previously mentioned numerous improvements, and how it then became typical for Glashütte production.